Glenn Beck's Jewish Obsession Plus More On Iran Sanctions Idiocy

January 14, 2011 3:31 pm ET

It appears that not even
historian Deborah Lipstadt's charges
about Glenn Beck's Jewish problem are daunting him. He's on this like a dog
with a chew toy. And it's not just about George Soros anymore (in fact, it
never was).

Although Beck says that no one is more "pro-Jew" than him, last night he listed nine
people — members of an "intelligent minority" — who are practicing some kind of
mind-control on the American people. And, guess what, eight of the nine
are Jews. Coincidence?
I think not.

According to Beck, during the past 100
years a loose association of shadowy figures who believed themselves to be the
"intelligent minority" infected the country with their notion that
the people are "animals" who can be controlled through propaganda. He
further warned that this same elite was leading the modern progressive movement
and would similarly seek to manipulate the masses in the twenty-first century.

Of course, most
American Jews are not paying attention; most of them wouldn't be caught dead
watching Fox News. But isn't it time that the Anti-Defamation League, the
American Jewish Committee, the Republican Jewish Coalition and AIPAC start
paying attention to what one of the most influential media figures in America
is saying about Jews? Or do they accept that Beck is, as he so delicately puts
it, a "pro-Jew" who "loves Israel"
and that therefore he gets a pass?

He sure
wouldn't if his name was Mohammed Beck.

But here's
some goods news. An up-and-coming Jewish group is taking Beck on directly. Like
most Jews — but unlike the establishment Jewish organizations — Jewish Funds
for Justice (JFSJ) believes in traditional Jewish values which are, as Beck would tell
you, quite progressive. JFSJ has now become the first Jewish organization to
demand that Glenn Beck be taken off the airwaves. Here is its latest video on
Glenn Beck and Fox News.

Our Ugly Iran Policy

Anyone interested in
following the sheer lunacy of this country's policy toward Iran should follow the writing of Ali Gharib, a young
Iranian-American from California
who reports for Lobelog, which is affiliated
with the Inter Press Service*. (Lobelog itself is an indispensable
resource on foreign policy.)

But one thing that is well known is
that, generally speaking, Iranian commercial passenger airliners are in
disrepair. (Reuters has a timeline of Iranian
airplane crashes since early 2000.) One possible cause: sanctions. Iran
is banned from acquiring parts and maintenance for its fleet of
planes that carry nothing more than civilians.

Iran has a history of frequent air
accidents blamed on its aging aircraft and poor maintenance. Many of the Boeing
aircraft in IranAir's fleet were bought before the country's 1979 Islamic
Revolution, which disrupted ties with the U.S.
and Europe.

Iranian airlines, including those run by the state, are chronically
strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say. U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old
American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes
as well. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them
Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the Soviet
Union's fall. [emphasis mine]

Gharib writes that American policy toward Iran has changed. Its goal is not
just to inflict pain on Iranian officials but on ordinary people:

State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley basically admitted last fall that a shift had occurred
wherein U.S. sanctions were
no longer seeking to assiduously focus pressure on certain figures associated
with Iran's
leadership. In other words, innocent Iranians ... were now on the hook for the
behavior of their government.

One may wonder whether this plane full of Iranians was dangling
precariously from that hook before it broke in mid-air and fell to the ground.

Do American officials know that our Iran
sanctions policy is causing innocent deaths in Iran? More importantly, do they
care?

I'd say no. As Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman, the former
chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle
East, puts it, "economic pain is not enough." He prefers "suffocating" sanctions.

And so do most members of Congress who, guided
by AIPAC, prefer "crippling sanctions" (or even war) to
comprehensive negotiations with Iran,
which could resolve the nuclear weapons issue but might also address Israel's
nuclear arsenal. And America
insists on pretending that Israel
is not a nuclear state, an act of hypocrisy that does not go unnoticed in the
rest of the world.

But, Gharib tells us, hypocrisy is the name of this game.

It turns out that Iran
is blocking gas trucks from crossing the border into Afghanistan. And the United States
doesn't like that one bit.

QUESTION: Some kind of economic tension is
brewing up between Afghanistan
and Iran.
Iran has blocked the supply
of gas to Afghanistan, which
has led to increasing gas prices and shortages of gas in Afghanistan. What do you have to
say about that — on that?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, we are watching closely that
development. Energy is a critical
resource to any country and any economy, and it should be available at whatever
the appropriate market price is. [emphasis mine]

Just a
week after an Iranian plan crashed, killing scores, which was quite possibly caused by
the deterioration of Iranian commercial planes due to sanctions
restricting spare parts, the U.S.
is speaking about the right of every country to have access to energy. This
comes while Congress and the Obama administration have put into place sanctions
that specifically target Iranian access to refined gas. Do you see the irony?

America's sanctions policy is a moral disgrace — and it would
be even if it could succeed. But it won't. If we want to ensure that Iran's nuclear program does not become a weapons
program, the only way to do that is through negotiations — negotiations that
acknowledge Iran's
right to civilian nuclear fuel.

Another
round of talks with Iran
takes place next week in Turkey.
Maybe this time the United
States can leave the sticks and threats at
home. Both sides can try negotiations in good faith. Thus far, neither has.

*Note: A previous version of this post mistakenly claimed that Lobelog is affiliated with the Institute for Policy Studies instead of the Inter Press Service.